Page 201 of Tempest of Wrath and Vengeance

Valter had told her Tessa had been visiting Xan, and she seemed far too clever not to have put it together yet.

When Eviana only held her stare, Tessa slowly set her glass aside, sitting up straighter. “Of course you know he’s down there. Valter truly tells you everything, doesn’t he?”

“Not everything,” Eviana answered.

“Right. Your daughter,” she said, sitting back once more and swiping up her glass, taking a healthy sip. Her nail tapped against the glass as she contemplated something or other. Then she said, “Do you know Lange and Corbin?”

“Two of the Fae Theon claimed early this Selection,” Eviana said. “Valter was upset for a short period of time.”

He’d been particularly rough with her that night. She’d still had bruises on her hips the next morning. Normally those healed within hours, but those had taken nearly two days.

Tessa set her glass aside again, pulling the combs from her hair and laying them on the sofa beside her. Running her fingers through the strands, she tugged on the ends a little as she said, “They are friends of mine. It is why he claimed them.”

Eviana nodded.

“But I’m guessing after Valter looked into their information, he wasn’t quite so upset anymore?” she added.

“I cannot tell you my Master’s secrets,” Eviana answered, letting Valter hear the words.

They are questioning you again?Valter demanded.

They are trying, but they never succeed.

Good, Eve. Very good.

She sighed, propping her chin in her hand while she watched Tessa. She hadn’t worked out what these visits were for. Tessa truly appeared to come just to chat.

And leave her things.

“I know you can’t betray Valter,” Tessa said, picking up her wine once more. “I would never ask that of you knowing how he enjoys…correcting behavior.”

She knew nothing.

She’d never experienced Valter’s sick pleasure of inflicting pain in the name of punishment and correction. Theon had always shielded her. She’d always had someone who cared about her. Eviana could tell it was more than a Source bond the minute Theon brought her home to Arius House. The moment he’d tried to make a strike against his father at the mere mention of sharing Tessa. She’d had her vines wrapped around him, holding him hostage. She’d whispered to him how he was going to want to believe that Tessa loved him too when she finally gave in. He may have locked the girl in a wine cellar, but he would never dream of handing Tessa over to Julius and Mansel. He would have never let another carve into her flesh. Would never let another impregnate her and then tie her down while that babe was taken from her the moment she took her first breath.

He wouldn’t use an innocent child to keep her in line.

“Can you speak of Cressida?” Tessa asked, snapping Eviana back to the present.

“What of her?” Eviana replied.

Tessa shrugged. “I rarely saw her with Valter outside of dinners. What does she do all day at Arius House?”

“You want to know of her daily activities?”

“I never see Rordan’s wife either,” Tessa said with a shrug.

“Their wives are matches for breeding children.”

“I knowthat,” she said. “But surely they must do something else?”

“I was always at Valter’s side. I know little of Cressida’s daily activities.”

Tessa only hummed at that, taking another bite of her doughnut. “You’ve known Theon and Axel their entire lives, right?”

“Yes.”

“And Luka?”

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